The present invention relates to a rotational signholder support assembly, and more particularly to a male adapter rotatable in a mating female socket between a number of different individual alignment positions, the adapter being used to carry an insert connected to an overlying signholder frame, so that by rotating the adapter in the socket the signholder frame may be located in a corresponding number of changeable alignment positions.
Signholder assemblies are known which are usable as merchandising aids to display indicia on cards, panels and the like type signs, and often include a signholder frame in which such an indicia containing sign is inserted, permitting the frame to be mounted in a convenient location of a consumer shopping area such as a retail store. The frame usually includes a male insert arrangement, which is interchangeably inserted in and fixedly seated against a stationary female mounting socket arrangement, attached to or forming a part of a stationary support.
A major drawback of such known signholder assemblies is that the insert and socket arrangements are usually provided with alternative fixed angular position interconnecting formations, for example counterpart square or cruciform shape formations, such that if it is desired to change the individual relative angular rotational alignment position of the insert arrangement in the socket arrangement for thereby changing the signholder frame angular orientation, the insert arrangement with its signholder frame must be removed from the socket arrangement, rotated to a different angular rotational alignment position, e.g. 90 or 180 degrees from the original position, and reinserted in the socket arrangement.
Also, once the insert arrangement is in a given fixed angular position in the socket arrangement, any external rotational forces acting on the signholder frame, such as those which might occur upon unintentional or otherwise manual grapsing or twisting of the sign, are transmitted more or less directly via the insert arrangement to the socket arrangement. This construction renders the often relatively delicate, normally plastic, interconnecting formation components of the assembly vulnerable to fracture, and especially to the complete breaking off of the exposed upper portion of the insert arrangement, which is connected to the signholder frame, from the lower portion thereof, which is fixedly seated in the stationary socket arrangement, under the resultant twisting force transmitted thereto by the frame acting as a first class lever, and whose thrust is concentrated at the point of connection between the upper exposed and lower seated portions of the insert arrangement.
It would be desirable to provide a signholder support assembly of the contemplated general type, constructed so as to permit changing of the angular rotational alignment position of such a signholder frame without having to remove the insert arrangement, to which it is attached, from its inserted position in the mating socket arrangement, and at the same time overcome any adverse effects of extraneous forces acting on any connection portions of the adjacent parts of the assembly.